by John Bierce
“That seems like it would be up to you boys,” Talia said. “Since you’ve already got a metal affinity, and metal’s sort of crystalline, right?”
Hugh sighed. “I mean, sort of, but not exactly, and only a rare few crystal mages can do anything with it. Kanderon and I aren’t among them.”
Godrick shrugged, still not looking away from the wall. “Ah can’t detect copper or silver with mah affinity senses.”
“I’ll do it,” Sabae said. Gusts of wind were flowing towards her as her armor began spinning up around her limbs. “I’ll act as bait. My lightning affinity’s not useful for much, but I can still block lightning if I need to.”
“This is way different than Rhodes’ lightning, or what you faced against the pirates,” Hugh said, looking nervous.
Sabae shrugged as the wind started to wrap around her torso. “We don’t have a lot of other options, do we? You and Talia just need to be ready to hit the spotter hard when he fires the beacon at me.”
Talia glanced at Hugh and realized she felt almost as nervous as he looked— risking her own life didn’t bother her too much, but having Sabae risk her life for them felt awful. She’d had more than a few nightmares about what might have happened to her friends if she hadn’t made it to the top of Skyhold in time on the summer solstice, and there was only so much her dream affinity could do to affect her own dreams.
Talia looked back at Sabae and nodded. “We’ll be ready.”
Alustin sighed, set his bookmark into place, then tucked the book into his storage tattoo under the guise of putting it into his satchel.
Then he leapt onto the iron-mesh teashop table as an arrow hammered into the chair he’d been sitting in, his arm still in the satchel. His teacup skittered off the edge of the table, shattering on the basalt floor, but the teapot managed to stay on the table.
Alustin pulled his arm out of the satchel, magically withdrawing a dozen books-worth of loose sheets of paper from his tattoo as he did so. He spun, spotting a tree growing out of the ruins of the metal chair he’d been sitting in.
The other patrons sitting on the teashop’s balcony, as if woken from a reverie, began shouting and fleeing for the inside of the teashop.
Alustin sighed, then leapt for the next table as an arrow hammered into his, knocking the whole thing over. The arrow immediately sprouted roots and leaves as it began to grow.
He leapt erratically from table to table as the archer bombarded the balcony. By the time he reached the last table, the first sapling had already reached the height of a man.
The sheets of paper spun wildly around him. A couple of the arrows hit the papers, which, while not strong enough to stop the arrows, were enough to deflect them away from Alustin.
The railing was, of course, just a raised row of basalt columns. Without any hesitation, Alustin leapt from the last table to the railing, then hurled himself off the third-story balcony.
Thunder rolled over the city.
The sheets of paper around him swarmed, wrapping around his torso and forming a set of four dragonfly wings behind him. They began moving in a blur, but Alustin was only head-height off the ground when his fall stopped and he shot forwards, dodging another shot from the archer.
Alustin had faced this bow before— Lothal was going to have a small forest to clean up after this. He’d never encountered Grovebringer on this side of the Skyreach Range before, but then, he’d seldom faced Havathi agents west of the mountains, let alone Sacred Swordsmen.
He hugged the ground as he flew, staying behind what little cover he could find, only going up to dodge the few Lothalans who hadn’t hid indoors. Your average Lothalan might be huge, but no more of them were mages than in any other city of its aether density— they knew to get out of the way of a mage battle fast.
Lightning crackled over the city again. Alustin considered heading for the source of the bolts— he’d wager all the gold in his tattoo that either Artur or the apprentices were being targeted— but he needed to shake off the wielder of Grovebringer first.
Which wasn’t going to be easy, considering that Grovebringer’s warlock wielder had also pacted with some sort of item that granted them invisibility. They’d proven to be one of the longest-lived Sacred Swordsmen the Librarians Errant had faced over the years— both organizations had high fatality rates, in no small part thanks to one another. Given enough preparation time, most Librarians Errant were more than a match for the Swordsmen one-on-one, but the Swordsmen liked throwing ambushes, and almost always outnumbered Librarians in the field.
Well, always outnumbered them in the field.
Alustin summoned even more paper out of his tattoo, took a deep breath, then released himself from the grip of his wings. The wings kept flying forwards, while Alustin plummeted down towards the street below, without losing his forward momentum. He rapidly assembled a new spellform in his mind’s eye, and the loose paper trailing behind him shot forwards, linking together to form a series of blanket-sized sheets of paper.
He tore through them one after another, but by the last, he’d slowed down enough to hit the street, roll, and immediately start running. The rough cobble-shapes of the basalt were going to leave bruises, but it was better to have bruises than having a tree growing out of his ribcage.
A rain of brilliantly glowing droplets tore through his wings, still buzzing over the street ahead of him, and Alustin grimaced and withdrew his magic from the paper wings as they caught fire. They collapsed into hundreds of sheets of loose paper, torn and burning.
Several pedestrians still in the street screamed as they were pelted with the glowing droplets, and the smell of burning flesh rose into the air. At least one person dropped to the ground unmoving.
One of the glowing droplets hit the ground just ahead of him, sizzling. He leaned forward to take a closer look, taking care to keep several sheets of paper with wards drawn onto them floating in front of him.
Molten lead.
Before the lead droplet finished cooling, it started rolling away from him, then leapt into the air. Countless other droplets of lead replicated its motion as the Swordsman responsible called the lead back to themselves.
Alustin sent his vision racing forwards with a farsight affinity spell and spotted the wielder. The arrows from Grovebringer had ceased, so they likely thought the rain of molten lead had taken him down. The Swordsmen would realize he was still alive soon enough, but he had a chance to escape through a building or side-street in the meantime.
He did seriously consider it for a moment, but his feet didn’t. Within a few heartbeats, he was sprinting at top speed towards the Swordsman pulling on the molten lead.
Alustin pulled his sword from his storage tattoo as he ran. The spellform lines of its enchantment began to glow, and Alustin smiled grimly.
Moments before Sabae was about to windjump, Hugh caught her attention.
“How are we supposed to know where the galvanic beacon is heading towards you from?” Hugh asked.
Sabae paused. “I, uh…”
Hugh fumbled around in his beltpouch, dropping a couple of Lothalan blanks on the ground, one of which promptly rolled into a crack in the street. He pulled out a lumpy, misshapen hunk of quartz and tossed it to Sabae.
“Launch that at whoever’s firing the beacons at us, I can track it with my affinity senses, then Talia can use my starbolt to aim. Both of you use the anti-glare cantrip I showed you,” Hugh said.
Sabae bounced the hunk of quartz in her hand a couple of times, then nodded at Hugh.
“Hurry up,” Godrick said. The wall shuddered, several large cracks forming in it. Godrick quickly began sealing them, but it was clear the wall wouldn’t take many more hits.
“Three,” Sabae said.
“Wait, are you jumping at one or at go?” Talia asked.
Sabae sighed. “At go.”
She shot Hugh a glance, and he looked briefly abashed.
“Three,” Sabae said, and spun her wind-armor up even faster.
<
br /> “Two.”
“One.”
Sabae swallowed nervously. “Go.”
She detonated the swirling winds around her legs, and blasted straight upward into the air. She immediately started spinning her leg armor back up.
Sabae carefully resisted the urge to look towards where the source of the lightning was or down to check the damage to the wall, keeping her eyes focused on the nearby buildings.
There. From the corner of her eye, she caught a glint from a window, and she turned her head to see a crossbow bolt flying straight at her.
She pitched her arm forwards in a perfect throw, detonating the wind armor around the arm just as the lump of quartz was leaving her hand. It shot forwards like an arrow just as the crossbow bolt struck her wind armor dead center over her chest and was thrown to the side.
She pushed outward with her lightning affinity as the lightning struck the crossbow bolt just inches away from her, and she found herself blasting towards the ground, away from the lightning.
As she fell, Hugh’s starbolt lanced towards the window, almost bright enough to blind her even with the cantrip protecting her eyes. Just before she fell behind the wall, a ball of purple-green dreamfire followed it. Interestingly, with the anti-glare cantrip protecting her eyes, she could see spots of yellow in it that must be drowned out, normally.
Her armor collapsed when she hit the ground, only a heartbeat behind the thunder.
Sabae groaned. She could feel her limbs tingling, like every other time she’d come so close to lightning. She didn’t feel any pain, like she had when she’d burnt the scars into her arms, shoulders, and face, but it still wasn’t pleasant. The armor had protected her from the crossbow bolt-shaped beacon and the fall, at least.
Godrick rushed over and said something that she didn’t quite catch, and Sabae shook her head.
“What?” she asked.
“Are yeh alright?” Godrick repeated.
“I’m fine,” Sabae said, sitting up with a groan. “Did we get the spotter?”
“Without a doubt,” Talia said, peering around the wall. “Wow. Starfire and dreamfire interact really explosively.”
Godrick helped Sabae to her feet, and she glanced over at Hugh.
“Thanks for that crystal, Hugh,” she said. “Don’t you use that to fight with sometimes?”
“I used to,” Hugh said, who was still looking past the wall. “Pretty sure it got destroyed just now. It was the first crystal I ever fused.”
Sabae rubbed her neck awkwardly. “I’m sorry, Hugh, I…”
Hugh turned to look at her and shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. It had sentimental value, but my friends have a lot more.”
“Ah think we should get moving,” Godrick said. “We’re out a’ the lightnin’ mage’s range now, but ah’d rather not let ‘im track us down again.”
“Right,” Sabae said, collecting herself. “We should head back towards the inn and try and find Artur or Alustin.”
“I think I see Artur fighting down towards the harbor,” Talia said.
Sabae glanced to where Talia was looking and spotted a massive stone figure looming over houses near the harbor, swinging a tree-sized hammer. Blasts of ice and yellow-green gas rolled harmlessly off Artur’s immense stone armor.
“And ah think ah see Alustin,” Godrick said, pointing.
Sabae glanced over and spotted what appeared to be a forest growing in the middle of Lothal that hadn’t been there a few minutes ago. A huge flock of origami golems and darting sheets of paper raced through it. Much of the paper was on fire, as were a number of the trees. Burning ropes of what looked like molten metal tore through the air above the forest.
As Sabae tried to make up her mind about which of the older mages the apprentices should head towards, Hugh spoke up.
“I just killed someone,” Hugh said. “An actual human being, not, like, an imp or monster.”
He stared at them for a second, then bent over and vomited.
CHAPTER FIVE
The Needle of Leagues
Hugh trailed after the others as they sprinted towards the lower harbor. He was barely paying attention to where they were running, and probably would have gotten lost if Talia wasn’t dragging him by one hand.
He’d just killed someone.
The past couple years Hugh had been training to be a battlemage, and he’d definitely thought about what it would be like to kill someone, but Hugh couldn’t even begin to wrap his head around his emotions at the moment. He’d never even seen the spotter he fired the starbolt at, had never looked them in the eyes. They’d been trying to kill him and his friends, but…
Hugh’s stomach churned, and he barely kept himself from stumbling and dry-heaving all over the street.
“Panic later, run now!” Talia shouted back at him.
Hugh nodded and forced himself to run faster.
A couple of years ago, he would have been crumpled on the ground gasping if he tried to run this far, but Alustin had been forcing his students to train physically for nearly two years now, which included daily runs.
In the distance, Hugh could see the looming form of Artur’s armor. He knew the stone mage could grow it to a far greater size than Godrick could, but right now it had to be at least twice the height that the demon Bakori had been.
Even from here, Hugh could feel the rumbling of Artur’s fight against their attackers. The bursts of ice either shattered harmlessly off his armor or were deflected in midair, presumably by Artur’s own magic. The green-yellow mist boiled uselessly around Artur— the stone mage had apparently come up with his own solution for poison gas years ago. He’d also come up with some solution for seeing outside of his armor without any sort of faceplate or hole, but he’d never told the apprentices what it was, and if Godrick knew, he wasn’t telling.
Not that Hugh would press— he respected Godrick and Artur’s secrets.
“That’s what ah’m supposed ta’ live up ta’,” Godrick muttered. “That’ll happen.”
Hugh glanced over towards the new forest that had sprung up on the western side of the city, where Alustin was battling more of their ambushers. The forest had continued expanding as the apprentices ran for the harbor, growing at unnatural speed. The roots were visibly growing between and splitting apart the stone columns that formed the buildings and terrain of the city. To make things even more absurd, more of the forest was burning at this point. Swarms of paper danced through the urban forest fire, a good number of them on fire as well.
Hugh was definitely happy staying away from either battle. Thankfully, they were heading for the lower harbor instead.
A few strands of Talia’s long red hair got in his face from where they’d come loose from her braid, and Hugh shook his head to get them away from him.
How was Talia so relaxed about killing people? She’d killed more than a few in the time he’d known her, and had apparently killed a raider from a different mountain clan when she was just a girl, but Hugh could never imagine himself being as calm about it as she seemed.
And, for that matter, Godrick had helped Talia drop several tons of rock on the valve room in Indris’ palace last summer, killing multiple cultists trying to flood the lower levels of the city. He didn’t seem that much more shaken up about it than Talia did.
Hugh… didn’t think Sabae had ever killed anyone, but he wasn’t sure.
Abruptly, his foot caught the edge of a slightly raised columnar cobble in the street, and he pitched forwards, pulling Talia off balance. He reflexively cast a levitation spell and caught them before they hit the ground.
“Sorry,” he told Talia as they climbed back to their feet.
Talia grumbled something, then took off, hauling Hugh behind her.
For someone that short, Talia could run surprisingly fast and far. Maybe because she’d grown up at such a high altitude, where the air was far thinner.
Godrick and Sabae had pulled farther ahead of them and were almost down to the
lower harbor. Both were fully armored— Godrick in his own smaller version of his father’s armor and Sabae in her wind armor that resembled nothing so much as whirlwinds wrapped around her limbs and body.
Sabae probably could have wind-jumped to the harbor in a fraction of the time it had taken for them to run there, but she had decided they all needed to stay together.
By the time Hugh and Talia had reached the harbor, Sabae and Godrick were already catching their breath at the edge of a harbor-side building. The harbor was otherwise deserted, save for a couple ships untying from the stone docks.
“You can let go of my hand now, Talia,” Hugh said.
“Oh, uh… right,” Talia said, and let go without looking at him.
Hugh leaned against the wall of the building and looked up past the harbor at Ampioc’s palace as he caught his breath.
“So we’re heading up to Ampioc’s palace to find him?” Hugh asked.
Godrick glanced oddly at Hugh. “Why would we go to the palace to find him?”
Hugh had just opened his mouth to respond when lightning struck the docks.
Alustin dodged around the trunk of a brand-new cedar tree as it grew out of the street, leaping over its writhing roots.
It was somewhat ironic that this forest was only minutes old, and it was already having its first forest fire.
The bow, Grovebringer, was one of the oldest enchanted weapons Alustin knew of that was still in active use, and it grew more powerful with every year it was pacted with one of the Havathi warlocks that made up the ranks of the Sacred Swordsmen.
Not that there was anything sacred about them, the Havath Dominion merely delighted in seeming like it was on the side of righteousness and order. They didn’t even allow cults in their territory, so the name was a bit absurd.
He still hadn’t caught any sign of its wielder, but as the urban forest grew denser, the archer had fewer and fewer clean shots at Alustin, making Grovebringer less effective in a protracted battle.
Especially since he suspected the archer was firing from well outside the forest.
Alustin glanced behind him, spotting the other Sacred Swordsman standing in the midst of the forest fire. He’d tried multiple times to get close to the woman wielding the oversized lead sword, but she was surrounded by a whirlwind of droplets and ropes of molten lead. There had to be almost a ton of molten lead swirling in the air around her. Even the papers that he’d painstakingly inscribed fire resistance wards and glyphs onto couldn’t make it through without being ignited or shredded by the lead— for that matter, they could barely withstand the heat of the forest fire.